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Topic: New 1776 DVD (Read 1271 times)

We've watched over the past few nights the restored DVD version of 1776. I highly recommend it, because if you've never seen it, you've never seen the whole thing.

Network TV showings inevitably bowdlerize a couple of spots, but in fact many large cuts were made to the film shortly before its original release. Most of those bits cut were some additions made to the play to make it work better on film, but one major scene was cut at the request of

Richard Milhous Nixon

Amazingly, they were able to find all of the excised footage, and the new DVD print looks very good.

It's a great movie. It takes some liberties with history, I understand (e.g., have Jefferson's wife come to him), but a lot of the dialogue apparently comes from the Founding Fathers' words/writings. Great 4th of July movie to watch.

I've never seen the movie (William Daniels is J. Adams, right?), but I vividly recall seeing the play when I was 9 or 10 at Maryland's Burn Brae dinner theater. This would have been right around the time of the Bicentennial. Even though I've never seen another production, I still remember some of the lyrics.

I've never seen the movie (William Daniels is J. Adams, right?), but I vividly recall seeing the play when I was 9 or 10 at Maryland's Burn Brae dinner theater. This would have been right around the time of the Bicentennial. Even though I've never seen another production, I still remember some of the lyrics.

We saw the play maybe 1-1/2 years ago, and when we got home, I bought the DVD. I wish I'd been interested in this before - no one should wait until they're my age to see this.

Get the DVD. You'll enjoy it. A few curse words, but nothing else off note. Some good songs, too. Yes, William Daniels as John Adams. I think he did the stage version, too.

I think it was about six years ago or so, they had a production in DC where all except two or three roles were played by congresscritters.

Daniels, Ron Holgate (RH Lee), and Howard Da Silva were in the Broadway production (among others), though Da Silva had a heart attack during the run and had to be replaced (which is why he isn't on the Broadway cast album). I do think that the film serves "He Plays the Violin" much better, since it obviates belting it out. It's such a delicious little piece of sexual innuendo.

At the back of the play there is a section about what Edwards and Stone went through to write the play. Part of the problem was that there was simply too much material. We're talking about an era of forward-looking, very literate men with pride in a turn of phrase. (For instance, the whole "Franklin did this. Franklin did that..." riff is a direct quote from one of Adams's letters.) So they found stuff that they could use because (ironically) nobody would ever believe that they had said it. For instance, what Adams actually said about the legacy of ducking the issue on slavery was that there would be war a hundred years hence. Edwards thought this was a little too precient and toned it down a bit.